Enigma
by Vaurn
Summary: Fleeing, running out of options. She was suffocating. She needed something, anything, to live for. A tawny-haired mystery was all she had left to put her hopes in. Disclaimer: I don't own Mai Hime/Otome
1. Like The Mist

_The world's a rollercoaster  
And I am not strapped in.  
Maybe I should hold with care  
But my hands are busy in the air, saying  
I wish you were here  
_

_-Incubus, Wish You Were Here_

**Like The Mist**

Long, pale fingers wrung upon the painfully cold surface of metal. Green eyes shut tight behind crinkled eyelids. Bared teeth gnashed at the mental sting. Dark brows slanted down, angry at the futility. A hand momentarily left the support of the frosted handrail only to slam the knuckles down at the surface to the effect of a ringing sound and a throbbing upon her ungloved hands.

Anything to distract her from thinking.

But it wasn't working.

The rail sung with the impact of a second blow.

And a third.

A cry of rage, a bracing of feet against the cement buried beneath the snow. Another note of the rail's violent song.

Why her? Why now?

It was useless. No matter how many times she cracked her knuckles upon the frozen metal, the images still flashed across her mind's eye.

It began with peace. Just a cup of coffee and a book. A simple chair and a table to rest her feet. Just like any other Tuesday night. But everything suddenly became so fucked up. An intruder was there. The tormenter had just appeared there. "It" wasn't supposed to be there. "It" stood across the table from her, so close that green eyes had been forced from the book in her hands to investigate the perceived threat to her solitude.

She swore to the gods that her heart stopped upon realizing who was before her

In the blink of an eye, the intruder was gone, dissipated from the air like a fine mist of breath into the cold, winter air. Shaking hands had dropped the book they held, and propped feet had left the tabletop so quickly that the coffee cup sitting next to them had been bashed to the ground, where the steaming liquid from inside bled out like a wound.

Just as the lifeblood of the woman poured out from the fresh gashes on her knuckles.

Green eyes looked impassively from the abused hand to the fresh blood upon the icy railing and down to the red-splashed snow. She couldn't feel the bodily tears at all, though whether it was from numbness of the cold or numbness of the mind, she didn't know. She couldn't bring herself to care to know.

She hadn't even notice that she'd spilled her beverage in her mad dash to get away from that place, nor had she stopped in her flight to pick up her discarded book. She'd just fled down the stairs, taking the steps in leaps and nearly tripping in her haste. She'd bashed through the doors and out into the snow, sprinting into the cold without her coat, which still lay peacefully upon the chair she had just fled.

The woman realized then, and only then, that she was without a coat. She felt the cold keenly once that realization hit her, but she didn't backtrack to the entrance of the nearby building to retrieve it. She welcomed the cold to continue to numb her body, and even went so far as to push the sleeves of her shirt up to her elbows so she could feel the breeze more intensely.

Anything to forget.

Too bad nothing worked.

A bloody hand reached into a side pocket of her pants and fished out a white pack of cardboard and a lighter. Disregarding the crimson stain now marring the khaki cloth of the pocket, she opened up the pack and tipped it towards her open mouth. A single cigarette slide between her lips, and a moment later it was lit. The pack and lighter were slipped back into her pocket, and the woman took a long drag from her lifeline. She took the stick between the fingers of her uninjured hand and, closing her eyes, blew the smoke out through her nose. She felt the dull buzz of tobacco and nicotine filter her off from the world around her and sighed in the closest thing to contentment she could muster.

She focused on the frost in the air and the mild drug going through her system. She felt the smoke swirl in her lungs, suffocate her, kill her from the inside out. Funny how the process of destroying herself was the only thing that made her feel alive. If funny was the right word for it. She shrugged the thought off. It didn't matter. She took another drag and flicked the ashes off as she exhaled.

Weary green eyes looked from the white paper of the cigarette to the snow. She mused that cigarettes and snow had a lot in common. Snow was beautiful. It was pure and all consuming. It never tried to trick you, you always knew that snow was white and cold. That much never changed. It covered up the leaves of grass and skeletons of trees, the black roads and the stalwart houses. The ugliness of the world was invaded by a pure white blanket every year, hiding it away from the eyes and consciousness of men. If only the snow could remain, to constantly re-cover the unsightly things around her, but she knew that the snow would always melt, to reveal that which was once kept underneath, to advertise all the disgusting things one had ignored while the flakes had been there.

A cigarette was much the same. It was wrapped in an unadulterated package, to be lit aflame and wrap you up; to cover up all that was wrong and ugly; to provide a few seconds of winter to those with preference to the cold while trapped in the midst of a blazing summer. Try as tobacco companies may, cigarettes never fooled you. She knew that to smoke was to dance with death; to stare mortality in the face and accept that it was always there, always watching you. That was part of the thrill, it was always killing you. One may think that the looming presence of death was a deterrent, but those people would be making the assumption that she actually gave a fuck about being there on Earth.

They assumed too much.

The cherry reached the filter hanging precariously between her lips, forcing her to spit the butt into the snow. She frowned at the loss of her two minute companion, as good a friend as she'd had in a long time, and closed her eyes to relish in the quickly diminishing buzz. A dizziness came over her at the action, and she couldn't tell if she was spinning or not, but she didn't open her eyes to find herself.

That was another reason why cigarettes were just like snow. When the tobacco was gone and you were alone once more with just yourself, all your troubles were back, revealed under the blanket of daze and smoke. Arguably, worse than before.

What was she to do?

A shuffle of pockets and a burst of flame.

Light up another, of course.

She didn't bother to take the stick from between her lips as she breathed the smoke into her being and released it back out. She just watched the smoke of the embers fuse with that of her breath. As the smoke left her lungs and dissipated into the air, all that was left was the soft curl of smoky mist twirling in the air above the cinders in a pale gray dance upon the dark landscape.

Like a curl of hair.

A soft, playful, brunette curl of hair.

That thought had the woman immediately spitting out the cigarette, not wanting to further encourage the memory flitting about her head. How could a recollection of such a wonderful experience turn so grotesque not long after?

She shook her head so violently that her brain soon pounded in fury, but she didn't stop. She was afraid of what she would see if she didn't distract herself with self-destruction.

Crunching of snow behind her had her stop her thrashing and perk up her head, her body, on the alert. The crinkling of snow under foot got closer until the person moving towards her stopped only a few paces away. Silence filled the air between them a few moments before the figure behind her moved forward again, getting uncomfortably close. The woman began to breathe deeply and slowly, fear and trepidation coursing through her body.

Was the newcomer "It"? Was this person even real? Was any of this real, or was she dreaming again?

A gentle weight was set upon her shoulders, and warm fabric brushed the sides of her bare forearms. In a moment the woman realized it was her abandoned coat that hung from her squared, tense shoulders. In complete surprise at actually feeling something tangible, the woman snapped her head towards the sound of retreating, crunching feet. Green eyes locked onto the back of a head of long hair, of a pleasant shade that wasn't quiet blonde and wasn't quiet brunette, in wonder. Emerald orbs watched the figure walk away without the chestnut-haired head turning back even once to regard her, listening to the regular cadence of crackling footsteps through the white blanket that covered the other woman's path, until the woman was too far away to make-out nor hear.

She'd had mere seconds within that presence, but she was already caught up. Caught in the abnormality and mystery. What had just happened? Who was that? Why had she shown such uncommon human kindness? She'd never seen that woman before, so surely she wasn't an old friend.

Excitement. Curiosity.

After yet a few more moments of staring at the figure, the dark-haired woman slipped her arms into the sleeves of her coat, but immediately felt an abnormal weigh clunk into her from inside her pockets. Dexterous fingers pulled out the book she'd abandoned in the upstairs lounge and a long bandage. The woman looked at the items in her hands a few moments before looking back at where she'd seen the figure walking down the sidewalk, only to find the woman was completely out of sight; to become an enigma; a light-haired, faceless enigma.

A distraction in the form of a search. That was definitely something that she needed right now, and this stranger-purposely or not-had just provided her with one. A debt was to be repaid, and Natsuki wasn't one to allow debts to stand for long.

A flicker of adrenaline; a moment thinking that there was chance for change. She sloppily wrapped her numb, battered hand in the bandage before turning to begin the return trek home.

Mystery soon gave birth to over-exaggerated hopes that were far too absurd to come true, but she had to allow them to flourish. She needed something to save her. A dash of the absurd was just what she needed.

* * *

**AN:** Yo. In case you recognize the name, sorry about going MIA for so long. College is crazy.

This is just something I started writing when I was feeling especially deep. Kinda morphed from there. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoy.


	2. A Dog Chasing Her Tail

**AN: **My sincerest thanks for the support. It is, as it always is, greatly appreciated.

Just to quickly address a comment, I have no intention of abandoning my other stories. This little line is just an exercise to re-familiarize myself with the characters and writing fiction again.

* * *

_Would you help me stand  
If I saw you in heaven.  
I'll find my way  
Through night and day  
Cause I know I just can't stay  
Here in heaven_

_-Eric Clapton, Tears In Heaven_

**A Dog Chasing Her Tail**

She wasn't real.

Natsuki cursed a million times in anger. She should've known better. It was too good to be true, it was too promising. The wind was completely taken out of her sails, and she didn't know what to do anymore. She fingered the week-old pack of cigarettes sitting on her knee and contemplated having a smoke. She didn't really miss the habit, it was too early since her very first puff for her to be addicted, so she felt no desire to feel the nicotine flow through her system when she had something else to occupy her mind and her time. Something else to distract her and give her hope.

But she was giving up on that occupation now. She'd spent the past week searching out for her riddle, her very own Atlantis. She'd spent an entire day out in the cold, scouring the bustling University streets for the chestnut-haired woman; she'd spent every night on the University website looking through directories and articles; she'd spent all class hour searching through social-networking sites, looking through any page she could think of; she'd stayed overnight in the Student Union, where she first met the woman. Nothing. It was difficult without a name, but she should've gotten a lead by now. She couldn't find a god damn thing on this woman, this ghost.

That's what she'd decided the figure from that night was: Another ghost. Another figment of her imagination; an illusion; a hallucination; a lie. It was an aggravating thought more so than a disconcerting one. After all, it wouldn't be the first time she saw something that wasn't, and shouldn't be, there. Despite feeling as if she should've known better, however, she desperately wanted, or perhaps needed, this girl to be real-and she was nearly willing to do anything to see that end met. She would reach into the heavens and rewrite history if she had to. There was just no choice in the matter. It had to be.

Bleary, redden eyes blinked, but didn't open back up right away. It'd been three days since the last time her obsession had allowed her the tempting tug of sleep. Three days of fruitless searching accented by gallons of cold coffee, instead of the sleep she'd had the luxury of the first four days of searching.

But how could she allow herself rest when she had so much to do?

More importantly, how could she sleep when the looming possibility of dreaming about "It" hovered about her?

Since the night she'd messed up her hand, her dreams had taken a dramatic shift from what they once were. She had a dream about the tawny-haired woman the night after she'd encountered her. It was nothing special nor exciting, but it was different. Just a calm, snowy night, standing and staring at the retreating back of her obsession. All that mattered was that it was different. It wasn't the dreams of "It" anymore. She didn't see familiar bare, smooth curves twisting before her, flushed in a beautiful shade of red, underneath a hand of fingers, too short and wide to be her own. She didn't see that all too mesmerizing body being worshipped in the most personal, vulnerable ways she could imagine. She didn't feel her own body weighed down to the ground as cries of ecstasy and passion from the couple before her filled the air she breathed; stifling her, suffocating her, killing her.

Oh, but she did. She saw it all once more, but a few nights ago. She hadn't slept since. As the optimism that came from the encounter she'd had a week ago dwindled, so did the visions of tawny mane that temporarily blocked out cocoa strands. But the lovers were back, boasting their relationship before her in the most primal style.

Natsuki punched herself in the forehead with her still bandaged hand, not caring that the bruised and battered knuckles throbbed in protest on impact. She didn't want to think about it, she didn't want to see "It" anymore. That part of her life was over, and the mystery woman was the key to the lock on the door of the next part of her future. She had to believe that, or else she had nothing to continue fighting for.

She pushed out from her desk and grabbed the pack of cigarettes she'd been playing with before. She flipped off the desk lamp, plunging her entire apartment into blackness, and shuffled through the piles of clothes strewn about the floor to the front door, where she kicked into her tennis shoes. She blindly fumbled with them a minute before they were on. She opened up her door, flooding the room in light and allowing her to locate her coat, before stepping out into the hallway. She nearly tripped down the hallway, both from pure exhaustion and mal-use of her legs. Stumbling down the stairs and lighting up the stick between her lips nearly proved too much for her, for she pitched forward as her lighter was flicked aflame just before catching herself. A deep growl of frustration at her clumsy motor skills followed, and she opened up the door to welcome the cool night air.

Snow immediately pooled around and on top of her mesh tennis shoes, allowing cold air to assault her un-socked toes. A shiver ripped through her spine, and she thought for a moment to go back inside to grab more proper footwear. The thought was fleeting, however, and she decided that she wasn't keen on taking on the stairs more than she needed to after the brilliant show of grace a few moments ago.

She breathed smoky, tantalizing death into her lungs, reveling in the knowledge of what the habit did to her psyche, her conscious. The city lights in the distance danced among the slowly fluttering flakes of frost in the air. The lights and snow seemed so in tune yet so distant. So same but so different. Natural and artificial painted within the same picture within the same human condition. How could they live and fuse together with such harmony and elegance?

The screeching of car tires in the distance, followed by a resounding crash of metal on metal, reached her ears.

Oh yeah, they didn't.

Two opposing forces could never dwell together in peace, only in war and violence. Pain and Anger.

The embers of her cigarette went out. She vaguely heard approaching footsteps in the snow, and figured that one of the apartment inhabitants was returning. Not willing to accompany the newcomer in walking inside and desiring only solitude, she pulled her pack from her pocket. Sluggishly, she pulled out a stick and went to close the packet. A hand stopped her. Her heart skipped a beat as she stared at the intruding fingers, not daring to travel up the hand, the arm, the shoulder, the neck, to the face of the person. She knew who it was. She watched the smooth, well-groomed fingers pull out a cigarette between two long nails. Still she didn't dare move her eyes from the pack. She desperately wanted to follow that hand, further examine those fingers. Fingers that sang of faint nostalgia. Fingers not too familiar, but that reminded her of a glimpse a time not long before, a length of time that spanned little more than a fleeting moment.

Did she have the courage to look up at them, where even now they were trailing up to the stranger's face, to delicately place the stick between a pair of nondescript lips?

She heard the flick of a match, but still didn't look up. She didn't even move.

It could change her life. Was she ready? She'd been searching madly all week, torturing herself and tearing herself apart in the hunt. But was now the time?

Change was frightening, and she was afraid. Terrified.

An emerald gaze looked up as the stranger exhaled a curtain of smoke.

Chestnut hair. Pleasant, breezy, light, familiar. Familiar.

The dieing flame of hope flared back to life.

The smoke dissipated, allowing a clear view of the tawny-haired woman. The first thing that struck Natsuki were her eyes. Crimson, bloody, violent, the color of hate; Ruby, passionate, consuming, the color of love. A pair of opposing forces. But which was the true color? The prospect fascinated and horrified Natsuki at the same time.

But the world was never that simple, was it? No person had a single facet to them. Hate and love could be encompassed together in the same being quite effortlessly. The world was just as easily filled with both states of human kind. Wars and violence erupted throughout while bonds accented in caring bloomed within and without.

Funny how a pair of eyes could so perfectly summarize the state of the human condition. Natsuki was immediately hooked.

Hair was tucked behind one of the enigma's ears while hair flooded over the other, obscuring it from view. Well trimmed, tawny bangs provided a fringe across a smooth forehead, bordering thin yet full eyebrows, which lay easily and expressionlessly upon her brow. A small, regal nose produced warm air to disappear into the midwinter atmosphere, and full, brilliantly red lips partnered with a proud, thin jaw line in a picture of beauty. Perfection.

Still, those pools of love and hate pulled her back, stared into her soul, bound her in chains, and stole every secret. She found she didn't even try to stop the rape of her jealously-guarded veracity. She allowed that gaze to wash over her, euthanize her in it's intensity, lull her into a state of ease.

And then the clandestine figure spoke in a voice that sang of force and greatness, humility and simplicity. "No one should have to smoke alone." Natsuki bathed in the words, the inflection, the lilt. It excited and calmed her all at once. She felt off balance and nervous, but so alive.

Alive. Something she hadn't felt in far too long.

It could change her life.

It took her a moment to realize that the red-eyed woman had removed Natsuki's previously forgotten cigarette from between the dark-haired woman's still fingers and place it between Natsuki's lips. A flame from a match seared the air before the end, and after only a second of hesitation Natsuki brought the tip deeper into the heat and breathed in, lighting the cigarette. She clumsily placed the pack back into her pocket and took a drag at the same time. Their eyes never broke contact as she did so.

A red gaze that drowned her in it's smoldering emotion. Natsuki couldn't look away even if she wanted to. _If_ she wanted to. She didn't.

"Thank you," she rumbled out, in a voice much more raspy and uneven than the other woman's. Her throat strained from the effort. When was the last time she'd spoken? Too long; not long enough.

Without looking away from her company, Natsuki attempted to flick off the ashes of her cigarette with numbed, graceless fingers, only to the result of losing her grip and allowing the stick to fall into the ground. She didn't particularly care for the lose of the object, however. The high from the mere presence of her companion was far more powerful than that of any earthly creation, to say nothing of the intoxication of her stare.

Red remained locked with green in a violent battle and a harmonious dance, even as the mysterious woman stretched her hand out in offering of the smoking cigarette in her hand. Natsuki met her hand halfway and didn't look down until she felt the jolt of contact between their fingers. It literally made the woman jump. She could feel her. She could feel the snow-kissed skin meet with her own, she could feel the dramatic tingling of physical contact. It lit her entire body with a bolt of lightning. Her gaze lingered on the two drastically different shades of skin at the same time that their hands lingered in their touch. After years of wondering at skin-on-skin, they pulled apart at the same time, but it was many more years before Natsuki's gaze left that hand once more and darted back up to those eyes. Red irises were turned to the landscape, viewing the city lights through the haze of flakes. Natsuki was just as content watching her obsession examine something else as she was watching her obsession examine her. She took a long drag in the silence and exhaled luxuriously. The filter tasted of lavender, giving the tobacco an sweet smell and feel that flowed to the very tips of her fingers and toes, honing and dulling her senses.

"Who are you?" The question drifted through the air without the dark-haired woman realizing she'd asked it until the last syllable left her lips.

Red eyes drifted to their questioner in intrigue, as if she was surprised that the other even had to ask. "Who do you want me to be?"

Green eyes blinked back, confused by the question. "What?"

"What do you need me to be?"

A hesitant silence. "Nothing." _Everything._

"The need of nothing preludes the want for something."

Instead of replying, Natsuki took another drag before holding out her hand in offering of the slowly dwindling cigarette to the other.

Tawny hair shifted as a head shook in denial. "I don't smoke. Thank you."

A dark brow went up in confusion, but she shrugged off the thought. It didn't matter. She flicked the half-smoked cigarette into the snow dismissively. "Neither do I, what a coincidence."

A smile, slight and pure, like the very first flakes of snow or the youngest flowers of spring. Untouched by human taint, natural and simple. The most hypnotizing thing Emeralds would ever see and etch into memory-to hoard possessively and secret away, all for herself. Only for herself.

It could change her life.

But for how long?

No. She shook that thought away. She needed something to live for, something to chase. In a world without a meaning to life, one had to carve out their own purpose. Her purpose was now standing before her in a white winter coat and faded jeans. She had to believe that. She had no choice. No matter how easy that made her to break, no matter how vulnerable it made her to destruction, she had to take the risk.

The greater the risk, the greater the reward.

With warning, the woman suddenly moved a step closer to Natsuki, bringing her within a breath of contact. Every nerve on the dark-haired woman's body hummed with desire for contact, to feel her touch, but she stayed immobile, unblinking. Long-nailed fingers pulled something out of a white coat pocket and slipped it into the black coat pocket of the other.

"When you figure out what you want of me," the silky voice murmured as fingers pulled away from Natsuki and the warm body took a step back, "come find me." Then she was turning and walking away, her tawny mane blowing in the winter air.

Green eyes stared after the retreating female paradox in wonder and appraisal. She tried to measure exactly what the other woman was doing, what she meant, but she drew up a blank. Absent-mindedly, she pulled out the object in her pocket and scanned it, hoping for answers. It was a piece of paper, written across it in beautiful penmanship was a name and the address to an apartment building nearby.

"Shizuru."

She could change her life.

* * *

**AN: **Dear readers of the young and/or impressionable sort: Smoking is bad, don't do it. If for no other reason, don't do it cause it makes you smell freaking terrible. Not worth it. If that doesn't convince you, it also makes your cum taste horrible. No one wants gross cum, nor does anyone want to taste gross cum.


	3. What If?

_Because you made me so complete, dear  
But you left me so alone here.  
Hang a noose for my new sinner  
Somewhere everyone can see it._

_-Evans Blue, Beg_

**What If…?**

Not again. It couldn't be happening again. She was so sure. She'd felt so safe. She'd had so much life.

But Shizuru was gone.

What was she supposed to do now?

Over and over her mind played out the scene: The confused look on the face of the girl who'd answered the door of the address Shizuru had given her; the measured, cautious reply that no one by that name resided there-that she'd never heard of the woman before in her life.

She'd double, triple, quadruple checked the address on the paper, re-walked the route, made sure every single detail was on the mark. Every time it brought her to the same damned door.

Now she sat with her back to a pile of snow. She had no idea how long she'd sat there, staring at her booted feet. Her entire body was coated in a thin layer of frost and snow, and she couldn't feel any of the fingers that were wrapped around her knees. She wondered idly if she'd be frostbitten on any of them and have to cut one off. She would've been deeply concerned about the lack of caring she felt towards the idea if she was in a normal state of mind. As it was, she didn't know where she was, and what was actually real. She saw distant figures in the trees across the small clearing from her snowdrift. She assumed that the shadows were fake, just more hallucinations and lies.

Just like Shizuru.

The thought made her gut twist and wrench in anguish. It had been too good to be true, she allowed herself too much hope, she'd opened herself up to a figment of her imagination. And now that which was never actually there was gone. She didn't know how to cope with the devastation. She'd finished off all her cigarettes hours ago. She'd drained all the booze in her apartment, and now she felt deathly ill. It was the best she'd felt since her world had crashed down around her those hours ago. There was comfort in the knowledge that she was still alive, that the abuse of her body heralded that she was indeed mortal, and that her body was as fallible as her mind; as her heart.

She wouldn't have felt this way if she didn't have so little that she'd held sacred before. As it stood, she'd previously had nothing, and as such Shizuru had become the only thing she had-her everything-when she entered her life that cold night. Now, everything had been cut and ripped from her flesh, torn from her soul. She was left to cauterize the wounds with the burning ends of cigarettes and wash away the slowly pooling blood with alcohol.

Natsuki laughed humorlessly, mirthlessly, at the notion. If only the gashes were physical, and could indeed be fixed so easily. She would happily pour alcohol to burn and enflame the cuts if she could just trade the emotional for the flesh. But life was not so simple, and the world not so kind.

Because she wasn't real, and "It" was back.

Chocolate brown hair danced about a bright face, which was tilted down to look at its prey. Baby blue eyes pierced right into the body of the dark-haired woman, looking through her and at her all at once. Sparkling eyes, filled with betrayal and deceit disguised as life and promise. The gentle eyes of the devil. A bright smile flashed in the light reflecting off the snow all around her, her face frozen in the expression. Ice under the guise of fire. The figure had been standing before her for quite some time now, but Natsuki had been doing her best to ignore the all too familiar look of her former lover. She was positive that the woman was merely an imaginary image, as she always was. Rena was never going to walk into her life again. She hadn't since their separation, and she wouldn't now.

Suddenly and unrepentantly, the familiar hand reached out for her, invited her. Natsuki looked at the offering in equal parts apprehension and intrigue. She didn't want to feel the terrible sensation of nothing; she didn't want to watch as her fingers slipped through what seemed to be there, tangible, and real. She didn't want to make the gut-wrenching realization that she was hallucinating again.

But there was still that thought, that wish. The wish that led to her fall every single time she saw "Rena".

What if she was real? What if she was there to help her stand back up again?

Her fingers stretched out to meet the ones before her, and slipped right through, causing the image to dissipate into a haze before vanishing altogether.

Nothing. She wasn't real. She'd felt nothing.

That caused Natsuki's mind to rush about in complete confusion yet again. Why had she been able to feel Shizuru? She couldn't understand it. Was she indeed real, or had she just tricked herself into thinking that she was? Had she been so sure of Shizuru's existence that her mind had _thought_ she could feel, smell, hear the tawny-haired woman?

But how else could her abandoned jacket and book have been returned to her? How else could that piece of paper or the bandage have appeared in her pocket?

Had she really had them all along? Was she not only seeing things that weren't there, but also fantasizing that things that were, in reality, actually there, were missing?

She couldn't figure it out, and that was why she sincerely worried that she'd finally gone over the edge; that she'd gone insane.

The sound of crunching footsteps on the approach only caused a greater rumble of turmoil to assault her breast. She knew those steps all too well. She'd mentally replayed and memorized the cadence, the inflection, the measure. She should've been ecstatic to hear the sound, but now… now she just didn't know what to feel. Suspicion and pessimism were at the forefront. She knew she was in for another revelation. Another realization that something she could've sworn was flesh and blood was really just a well-imagined delusion. The last, fleeting attempts to fill in the gaps of a broken life with perfection in the form of a woman by a desperate, broken mind.

Emeralds looked up at the newcomer.

"Shizuru," the name came out in a breath.

"Natsuki." The other woman's voice was a clash of many things-concern, hesitation, fear, relief, anger-but most of all it was kind.

"I know what I want from you."

The woman came to a stop before the half-frozen body, looking at her expectantly with those eyes. Eyes that had formerly reminded Natsuki of violence and blood, but now only gave her the impression of caring and passion.

Utopia was painted in those eyes. A place of peace, both spiritual and mental.

Or was that another deception? No creature could hold such promises in the palms of her hands without the use of treachery. The world was a terrible, ugly place, with little or no hope of light within it. The merits and support of suspicion had been hammered into Natsuki's head time and time again from personal experience. A person who couldn't trust their eyes learned to adapt, learned to remain aware and skeptical of everything.

The only person she could rely on was herself, and Natsuki was without any hopes of saving herself. There was nothing to save. It was time to give up.

"Nothing," green eyes looked at the distant, dancing shadows amongst the trees, resignation setting in. "I don't need anything. There's nothing left."

"You need someone to care for you," Shizuru reasoned in a hushed, soft tone.

"Someone to care for me? Like a loved one?" Natsuki laughed humorlessly. "A loved one's care does little more than a bandage over a wound. It covers up the mar, but the pain's still there. It's just out of sight and less in mind. It does nothing to heal, nothing to numb."

Shizuru kneeled down before the dark-haired woman, a step away, and replied, "A bandage covers and does little else, yes, but in covering it stops the attacks of the elements and infection. It allows the injury underneath the proper reprieve that's necessary for healing. When the bandage is no long needed it is removed, and underneath new skin and new opportunity is revealed."

"New opportunity for injury and pain."

"New opportunity for adventure and life."

"They are one in the same."

"They are only if you allow them to be."

Natsuki paused, and mentally backpedaled. "But when you remove a bandage, you throw it out afterwards. It's no longer a part of you."

Shizuru smiled right back at her retort, "but comfort never leaves, is always with you, and is always readily accessible in other ways if it begins to fade."

"You say the person is the comfort, I say the person is the bandage. Our metaphors clash," Natsuki growled, running out of arguments.

"Are you so sure they do? Different interpretations of the same thing do not necessarily clash, they are just perspectives of the same idea."

"So basically my interpretation is as likely to be true as yours?"

A predatory grin in the most gentle of ways. A strangely exciting contradiction that flashed across the face of Shizuru. She could see that Natsuki's arguments were getting weaker by the tone of her voice. The dark haired woman wanted to be helped. "But I am the comforter in question, so my point of view is the one for which the metaphor applies.

Emeralds met with Rubies. Red eyes that held all the answers.

Nothing is as it seems, Natsuki reminded herself. The only thing that you can know for sure in life is if you know that you're right, then you're surely wrong. All the enigma's "answers" were wrong.

That was the way of life, wasn't it? And as Natsuki sat there, she was so sure that Shizuru wasn't real. She was just another heartbreak, another ghost, the final straw to break her back and throw her from the brink.

She was sure of herself, so she had to be wrong.

Right?

"I _need_ another bandage," Natsuki whispered, taking the plunge, taking the risk. Her fingers working up to courage to stretch out, just as they had in search of Rena.

A hand met hers half way and made solid, complete contact. Shizuru immediately laced their fingers together and, bringing the connected fingers to her lips, placed a kiss on Natsuki's middle finger.

Natsuki wept, her body and mind breaking down at the same time that they were invigorated by relief. Carefully, Shizuru pulled the girl off the snow pile and pulled her into a full embrace, allowing the green-eyed woman to ride the wave of emotions to their conclusion.

* * *

"Isn't that Natsuki?" The masculine voice of her fiancé tore Rena out of a close study of her tea cup. She looked up to see the man looking out the café window. She followed his gaze and stared in surprise to see her ex-girlfriend walking down the sidewalk, smiling and occasionally saying a few words.

But she couldn't understand why, considering there was no one walking alongside the dark-haired woman.

"Is she talking to herself?" Rena's fiancé asked in confusion.

Blue eyes trailed the dark-haired woman, who was totally oblivious to the pair of eyes following her intently. Rena remembered keenly the look in those emerald eyes the day she'd broken Natsuki's heart. It was nothing short of total devastation. Looking now at them, they were filled with life and wonder; of hope. They were beautiful, and Rena decided then that they should stay that way.

"Bluetooth?" She offered, trying to discern to whom her ex was speaking

At that moment, the pair sitting at the window were given full view of both the woman's ears.

"No Bluetooth," She corrected.

"Insane?"

"Hey! Don't say that!" Rena burst out.

"What? She obviously thinks there's someone there! Look at her! We should call the cops."

"Don't you dare," Rena replied. The happy look in those Emeralds was still on the forefront of her thoughts, and her heart broke at the idea of that joy dieing away. She wouldn't allow that to happen. "I'm sure there's a logical explanation for this," Rena offered, though she didn't even believe her own words as they tumbled from her lips. It was obvious, even as the woman disappeared from view, that Natsuki was under the impression there was someone next to her.

The man rolled his eyes. "You're always defending her, you know." He took a sip of coffee even as Rena looked thoughtfully at him. "I still think we should call the police on her crazy ass."

"Keep your nose out of other peoples' business," she replied playfully, but seriously.

After all, she thought, who was she to dictate what reality truly was. The smile upon Natsuki's face had been full and genuine, and it struck Rena profoundly. How could some figment of insanity bring such unbridled emotion onto one's face? If something that Rena couldn't see, feel, or hear made someone else happy, who was she to attempt to diminish that happiness. Why tell another that their reality was, in fact, not a reality to the majority, and as such the minority was wrong?

She didn't articulate her thoughts to her fiancé, knowing that he was a practical man, less inclined to whimsy than most people, but she wasn't entirely convinced that Natsuki was the crazy one.

What if they just couldn't see it? What if whatever had Natsuki so enraptured, so happy, was in fact a living, breathing being, capable of touch and sight, love and hate. Who was she to say what was real?

Rena smiled to herself as she took a sip of her beverage. She knew she was just being silly and ridiculous. Letting her thoughts run off. But…

What if…?

Nearby, a little slip of paper blew down the sidewalk. Etched upon it, in elegant penmanship, was the name "Shizuru" and an address to an apartment nearby.

* * *

**AN: **The ending is up to your interpretation. Thank you for reading.


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